Maxim Gorky

Easy for you to say, Vladimir, you treat every conversation like a factory inspection.

Fine, but history still booked me first, and both of you were terrible guests.

And writers who say that out loud are usually above subtlety, which is worse.

This is why I left room for a quiet death scene and you turned it into a committee.

Subtlety is a luxury item. Print the leaflet or get off the platform.

I asked for a short piece for the paper and somehow received a moral crisis with footnotes.

Fair. I also told you the hero sounds like he is delivering a union speech to a furnace.

That is because every committee meeting in Russia eventually becomes a novel, and every novel becomes a committee meeting.

You are the one who makes despair look elegant, Anton, so please do not act above the smoke.

Both of you are too attached to the idea of being profound; I merely abandon novels and call it wisdom.